Metro Report: Recapping Each Metro Team’s Offseason

The Flyers, Rangers, Islanders, Devils, Capitals, and Penguins welcome back the Columbus Blue Jackets and the Carolina Hurricanes.

The dog days of summer are here and you’re either on vacation or sweating to death. Either way, allow me to catch you up on what happened in the Metro Division during the offseason. Oh, what’s that? You didn’t know? Yes, the Metropolitan Division is a thing again.  

Let’s get to recapping.

Carolina Hurricanes

Players added: Frederick Anderson, Antti Raanta, Tony DeAngelo, Ian Cole, Derek Stepan, Ethan Bear

Players lost: Dougie Hamilton, Warren Foegele, Jake Bean, James Reimer, Petr Mrazek, Alex Nedeljkovic

Things started off positive at the beginning of the offseason for Carolina as Rod Brind’Amour won the Jack Adams Award for coach of the year. Unfortunately things took a turn as Dougie Hamilton left for New Jersey and Calder runner-up, Alex Nedeljkovic, was shockingly traded to Detroit. It wasn’t all bad though as the Canes’ brought in veteran goalies in Frederick Anderson and Antti Rantta, shoring up their goaltender position. They also added 3 defenseman in Ethan Bear, Tony DeAngelo, and Ian Cole.

I don’t like what the Hurricanes did in goal as I felt Nedeljkovic would be their goalie for years to come. It was a forgone conclusion that Hamilton was going to walk and the Canes’ did a decent job filling out their defense. While I don’t care so much for Tony DeAngelo the person, $1m/1yr deal is extremely low risk and potentially high reward for a decent hockey player.

Grade: C+

Columbus Blue Jackets

Players added: Jake Voracek, Adam Boqvist, Jake Bean, Sean Kuraly, Zac Rinaldo

Players lost: Seth Jones, Cam Atkinson, Michael Del Zotto, Riley Nash

Columbus was one of the busier teams in the offseason as they shipped their top defenseman in Seth Jones to Chicago and welcomed back a familiar face in Jake Voracek. “Mr. Columbus” was traded to Philly for the aforementioned Voracek as the Blue Jackets continued their franchise facelift. Young defenseman like Adam Boqvist and Jake Bean were added through trade and gritty forwards Sean Kuraly and Zac Rinaldo were added as free agents.

There is no doubt that Columbus is building a new core and it should be fun to watch Patrik Laine play with Jake Voracek. Bean and Boqvist are both young puck moving defense and should grow into core players on this roster for years to come. Given their circumstance with Seth Jones, I think Columbus made out fairly well this offseason.

Grade: B+

New Jersey Devils

Players added: Dougie Hamilton, Johnathon Bernier, Tomas Tatar, Ryan Graves, Christian Jaros

Players lost: Will Butcher, Ryan Murray, Nathan Bastian, Nick Merkley, Aaron Dell

New Jersey got their offseason started with a surprise trade for now former Colorado defenseman, Ryan Graves, and they kept the momentum going by signing the prize free-agent defenseman of the offseason in Dougie Hamilton. Coveted free-agent goalie Johnathon Bernier also signed on to tandem with Mackenzie Blackwood and Tomas Tatar signed a 2 year deal worth 4.5m a year.

The Devils absolutely improved as they didn’t lose any players of significance and they added a star to go along with 3 big roster upgrading players to their lineup.

Grade: A+

New York Islanders

Players added: Richard Panik

Players lost: Jordan Eberle, Nick Leddy, Andrew Ladd

In short, the Islanders shed cap this summer. They are supposedly still in talks with Zach Parise, so stay tuned.

The Islanders get their captain back for next season in Anders Lee. The team could still use a goal scorer and have been linked to Vladimir Tarasenko. If they do trade for “Tank” my grade could change but for now I am underwhelmed.

Grade: C-

New York Rangers

Players added: Barclay Goodrow, Sammy Blais, Ryan Reaves, Nick DeSimone

Players lost: Pavel Buchnevich, Brett Howden

It’s clear what the plan was this summer for the Rangers. Get tougher. They added tough to play against players in Goodrow, Blais, and of course the antidote to Tom Wilson in Ryan Reaves. What the plan should have been was to trade for Jack Eichel.

Sure they added some nice players but they lost Pavel Buchnevich who I feel is better than any of the players named above. Also they haven’t pulled the trigger for Jack Eichel and still lack center depth.

Grade: D

Philadelphia Flyers

Players added: Ryan Ellis, Rasmus Ristolainen, Cam Atkinson, Keith Yandle, Martin Jones, Nate Thompson

Players lost: Jake Voracek, Shayne Gostisbehere, Nolan Patrick, Phil Myers, Robert Hägg, Brian Elliott

The busiest team in the Metro this year. The Flyers severely underachieved and Chuck Fletcher all but promised sweeping changes for this offseason. He delivered. Ryan Ellis was acquired to presumably play alongside Ivan Provorov for years to come and Rasmus Ristolainen was rescued from Buffalo to start over in Philadelphia. Somehow the Flyers were not only able to get out of Jake Voracek’s albatross contract but they were actually able to acquire a shoot first player who will make a difference on the ice and in the locker room. Shayne Gostisbehere and his 4m a year contract is replaced by iron man, Keith Yandle, for the veteran minimum and could boost the power play while playing on the 3rd pair defense.

Look I know it looks like the Flyers gave up a lot for Ristolainen, but in a draft year such as this, it’s almost a steal. Especially if Ristolainen is able to resurrect his game. The subtractions of Voracek, Gostisbehere, and Nolan Patrick alone could potentially be additions by subtraction. Replace them with guys who all wore a letter on their jersey and apparently still love coming to the rink and it’s hard to imagine the Flyers won’t improve, almost by default.

Grade: A

Pittsburgh Penguins

Players added: Danton Heinen, Brock McGinn, Filip Hallander

Players lost: Jared McCann

Pittsburgh is in a tough spot with the cap. Their core, albeit still productive, is another year older and unfortunately they’re taking up huge amounts of cap space. Jared McCann was replaced with Danton Heinen and Brock McGinn could prove to be a decent signing.

Overall it was an underwhelming offseason for Pittsburgh and this could be the first of many with Ron Hextall at the helm.

Grade: D

Washington Capitals

Players added:

Players lost: Brenden Dillon, Michael Raffl

The Capitals are already built to win now so there weren’t many moves to be made aside from re-signing Ovie and shedding Brenden Dillon’s salary.

Kuznetsov’s name continues to pop up in the rumor mill but at this point I’ll be shocked if he’s not on the Capitals roster come October.

Grade: C

Let me know what your grades are in the comments!

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